Hypothetical Casting

aka: Hypothetical Cast

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When someone involved in a fictional project makes a list of actors who would best represent a cast of fictional characters.

The purpose of a hypothetical cast may be to give the reader of a fictional work a better picture of how a character looks and acts. This is common practice for online virtual series and sometimes used by authors of commercially published works. It can also be part of a hypothetical discussion by fans of a work. Many times, when a creator is pitching a work to a production company (such as a new series to a TV network), the creator will use existing photos from previous works to help others visualize the characters (as mentioned below, Jeff Eastin used a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio circa Catch Me If You Can, to help visualize the gentleman rogue con man of White Collar's Neal Caffrey.

Examples:

Anime Insider has a regular column that listed whom the editors would like to see in a live-action adaptation of an anime.

This is a very popular past-time in many anime and voice actor sites in Spanish-speaking countries, partly due of the long voice-acting tradition of those countries.

Saiyuki - Previous to its animated adaptation Artist Kazuya Minekura (jokingly) suggested that resident Stepford Smiler Cho Hakkai be voiced by Akira Ishida, and so when time came to actually cast him, the animators decided that Ishida was indeed the best candidate for the job.

Comic Books

Scud the Disposable Assassin always lists the voices of actors that the creator of the comic imagines will be voicing the characters in animation.

Wizard Magazine has a regular column about what actors should play what roles in comic book movies.

In-universe example: At one point in The Ultimates, the characters sit around talking about who would play them in the movie of their lives. Naturally, Nick Fury says Samuel L. Jackson (on whom Ultimate Nick Fury was based). Things get awkward (and then very much worse) when Hank Pym starts suggesting Steve Buscemi should play Bruce Banner in the most unintentionally insulting way possible.

iCarly's Father and its sequels, a Nick Verse fanfic series which is mainly a crossover between iCarly and Victorious, has the hypothetical casting of Joe Flanigan as the adult Steven Shay, and Ariana Grande with her natural brunette hair colour as Taylor Dorfman in flashbacks set during her and Col Shay's romance during high school. The hypothetical resemblance between Taylor and Cat Valentine (Ariana's redhaired character on Victorious) is brought up when Steven meets Cat for the first time.

The writing site Wattpad encourages its users to do this with a feature allowing them to pick their ideal cast from a list of celebrities.

In Child of the Storm, Harry, and by extension Thor's James Potter form, is fancast as Tom Welling. The Casting Gag inherent in this (Clark Kent also exists in this world, as a contemporary of Harry's), is noted indirectly in the narrative and directly in the Author's Notes. Other characters are also cast:

The Arrow fic Guardians of Star City: Season 1 features a cast list the author is personally picturing, but he encourages readers to stick the show's actors if they so desire. Most of the characters are played by the same actors in they are in the show, the changes (explanations for why such changes were made are provided) are:

Russell T. Davies has mentioned envisioning certain actors in his head while creating various characters for Doctor Who. He said that while creating Adelaide Brooke for "The Waters of Mars," he created her with Helen Mirren in mind (the role eventually went to Lindsay Duncan, who does bear a slight similarity to Mirren.) Similarly, for River Song, they considered Kate Winslet for the part (which went to Alex Kingston.)

When then-Senator Barack Obama appeared on the Tyra show, Tyra asked him who he would like to play him in the inevitable biopic. He initially said his first choice would have been Denzel Washington, but because of the ears, it might need to be Will Smith.

In Stephen King's novel The Regulators, after Johnny Marinville and his black neighbor, Brad Josephson have a hard time climbing a fence to escape from monsters, Johnny jokingly suggests that they should make a movie called Black Men Can't Clmb Fences, where Brad would be played by Laurence Fishburne.

J. K. Rowling had her own ideal cast for Harry Potter long before the first movie was made, and was lucky enough to see several of her choices (Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, for one, and Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, for another) actually used.

Rowling's first choice for Severus Snape was Tim Roth, who turned down the role. It subsequently went to Alan Rickman, who then inverted this trope by gradually overwhelming Rowling's own image of Snape and influencing how she wrote his dialogue (just try not hearing some of Snape's dialogue in the books written after the first film was made in Rickman's voice).

Stephenie Meyer's choice for Bella was Emily Browning. Meyer also said she pictured Henry Cavill when writing Edward Cullen, but by the time the movies were made, he was considered too old for the role, making it the second part he's lost to Robert Pattinson (the first being Cedric Diggory.)

In online RPGs, players often use pictures of real people (actors or otherwise) to represent their characters. This is called a PB, or "played by".

Amusing things happen when this is done with Harry Potter characters before they are cast for real:

Before the third film, Ralph Fiennes was a popular fan casting choice for Lupin. Ironically, Ralph Fiennes went on to play Lord Voldemort, which is about as far away from mild-mannered Professor Lupin as you can get. There are still plenty fans who think Ralph Fiennes would have been a better Lupin than David Thewlis.

This 2005 Entertainment Weekly article speculates on who should play characters in the then upcoming Potter films. Helena Bonham-Carter is suggested... for the part of Merope Gaunt.

In-universe within the Whateley Universe, Phase - having just bought out Marvel Comics (in 2007) - ends up in a discussion with his teammates about a possible Iron Man movie and why it wouldn't work because of the casting difficulties.

Whole groups on Polyvore are dedicated to "dreamcasting" characters, mostly from the Disney Animated Canon.

Towards the end of At War's End, that guy from that show started working on a cast list for a hypothetical film adaptation and asked his fellow players for actor suggestions. Note that this cast list is largely based on the actors' credentials rather than their appearances, so the casting picks are not intended to give readers a better mental image of characters' appearances.

Tabletop Games

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer tabletop RPG makes a lot of hay out of the televised nature of its inspiration; the GM position is called 'The Director', and individual adventures are called 'Episodes' and meant to be part of a larger 'Season'. To top it all off, the rulebook encourages players to identify the actor who would play their character if the game they were in was actually a TV show.

Theater

In a PBS documentary on the making of The Producers (stage musical) cast album, Nathan Lane jokes with Mel Brooks about who will star in The Movie. Lane says Danny DeVito will be playing Bialystock. Brooks promises that Lane will be in the movie.

Video Games

The original Castlevania has for the credits a list of well-known horror movie actors "cast" as the bosses of the game.

Visual Novels

Hatoful Boyfriend, as a Doujin game, has no voice work, but each love interest's introduction names a voice actor whom the creator would like to play them if it did.

The Simpsons has an in-universe example: In response to a remark about who should play Homer in a live-action "Angry Dad" movie, Bart suggests John Goodman, but Homer strangles him and exclaims, "Isn't it obvious?! It should be Gary Oldman!"

During season 5 of The Venture Bros.,[adult swim] encouraged fans to submit their ideas via Twitter and the official message boards for who would play the characters in a hypothetical live action version of the show. As one would expect, the ideas were all over the place, but a few stood out as good fits, including Michael Cera as Dean Venture, Hugh Laurie as Phantom Limb, Edward Norton as the Monarch, and Peter Dinklage as Jonas Jr.

In many sites, even in This Very Wiki, many fans suggested the hypothetical Japanese voice cast for the dub of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. One of the most interesting voice choices were Mariya Ise as Twilight Sparkle and Arisa Ogasawara as Applejack, partly due both VAs worked in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt as the titular heroines, and both characters resemble quite a lot like those characters from MLP. Ironically enough, when the proper Japanese dub came out, Ise did work in the dub, but as voicing Scootaloo instead, while Ogasawara did not get any role there.

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